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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Learning Journal',
	'<{subtitle}>' => 'ENGL 1405: World Literature',
	'<{copyright year}>' => '2018',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<section id="Unit1">
	<h2>Unit 1</h2>
	<p>
		Fiction is an abstraction.
		One thing that humans are very good at is abstraction, far better than other animals: numbers, words, currency ... those are all forms of abstraction that help us immensely in our daily lives.
		We are <strong>*so*</strong> good at abstracting that we forget that these basic abstractions are even abstractions.
		We forget that numbers don&apos;t exist in nature, and were merely invented to help us keep track of and process quantities.
		We forget that worlds and language are merely an invention to transmit and/or record an approximation of ideas, desires, and instructions.
		We forget that money is merely pieces of paper and metal.
	</p>
	<p>
		Throughout the animal kingdom, animal species with a level of intelligence above a certain threshold tend to engage in play.
		Humans are obviously above this threshold.
		Thought the animal engaging in play often doesn&apos;t realise it, play acts as a way to practice skills.
		In humans, not all of these are vital life skills; trivia night probably isn&apos;t going to help you survive into adulthood.
		Still, in humans and non-humans alike, important survival and other functional skills are often honed through play.
	</p>
	<p>
		So what does all this have to do with the journal entry topic?
		Well, analysis is a vital skill for interpreting and understanding the world around us.
		When we read fiction, we&apos;re taking in an abstraction, a model of a situation.
		When we analyse that fiction, we&apos;re practising and honing our analytical skills.
		If someone were to tell me that analysing fiction was in any way an important ability, I&apos;d strongly disagree.
		However, there are no skills involved in analysing fiction that cannot be applied to analysis of non-fiction (which is useful for understanding past events, such as when a friend is explaining what happened when they tried some action) or even applied in real time to events unfolding before you.
		If you can analyse fiction, you can analyse other things you understand and vice versa.
		Analysis itself is a general tool and important skill for living as an animal with higher intelligence.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit2">
	<h2>Unit 2</h2>
	<p>
		Written language (and in fact language in general) is a huge part of what make society tick.
		From an early age, we&apos;re presented with symbols everywhere.
		While not directly intended for children, many of us try to make sense of and find the meaning behind these letters and words long before even going to school for the first time.
		Those that don&apos;t are required by the school system to catch up with these early adopters of literacy.
		In either case, we&apos;re expected to make use of written language in our daily lives from early education onward.
		Instructions are presented to us in text form.
		Troves of information is made available to us, in either the form of libraries or the Internet.
		While some knowledge is selfishly kept under lock and key (figuratively or non-figuratively), huge amounts of gathered information is available to those that can make sense of written language, and knowledge can even be passed down many generations through the art of literacy.
		We&apos;re expected to submit our own coursework in the form of readable language, and in later life, paperwork will need to be submitted just the same.
		This allows grading or paperwork processing to be done later; it doesn&apos;t have to be done in real time.
		Even this submission here is in the form of written words and little else.
		(Technically, there are some $a[XHTML] formatting tags for presentation in this submission, but not even all submitters of this assignment will use those.)
		Written language also allows us to essentially use our environment as an extension to our working memory.
		I can write myself a note to remind myself of something later, for example.
		Or I can walk to one room, make a note of what needs to be brought there, and walk to another room using my list right away so I can keep track of a greater number of items than my brain would be able to store short-term on its own.
		And people do this sort of thing without even thinking about it.
		Written language has been so ingrained into who we are that society would not and could not be the same without it.
		Long story short, reading affects me and billions of other people on a daily basis without any of us really paying attention to its effects.
	</p>
	<p>
		As I said, written language and literacy can be used to give instructions and collect responses.
		This can be generalised; it&apos;s being used as a medium of short-term, asynchronous communication.
		These communications can even be sent great distances, such as by post.
		We can generalise this further; such use doesn&apos;t need to be asynchronous.
		People write notes to each other, looking at the paper as the notes are being written, to avoid drawing the attention of others.
		It&apos;s used for non-audio communication, such as when someone in the room is sleeping or studying and shouldn&apos;t be disturbed.
		With the rise of the Internet, communication methods such as $a[IRC] have come into existence: real-time communication across vast distances via written language.
		This has a <strong>*huge*</strong> impact on society.
		I&apos;ve solicited and given help and advice for issues from people across the globe, and I&apos;m far from the only one.
		We have access to volunteer experts across the globe, meaning that they&apos;re awake when we are!
		It&apos;s always daylight somewhere, right?
		Even if it&apos;s 03:00 and you&apos;re the only one awake in your area, it&apos;s noon somewhere and there are probably knowledgeable people in the time zones in which people are still awake.
		Archival of knowledge is exceedingly important to society too.
		More so even, I&apos;d say.
		Society evoles by building off the lessons of the past.
		These days, <strong>*absolutely nothing*</strong> is completely original; it&apos;s all derivative.
		Expanding on the archived knowledge of the past is the <strong>*only*</strong> way technology progresses.
		Even if we couldn&apos;t progress, archived knowledge brings us up to speed on what past generations knew so we can live as well as they did.
		Without written language and literacy, we&apos;d quickly devolve back to something closer to the stone age.
		Some knowledge would still be passed via oral language, so we wouldn&apos;t revert entirely, but we&apos;d likely lose all modern medicine and most if not all electronics fairly quickly.
		That&apos;s just the beginning of the regression, and it assumes we had written language to start with and lost it.
		If we never had it to begin with, we wouldn&apos;t be where we are today to start with.
	</p>
	<p>
		I think archival and communication are the biggest ways reading and written language impact society, but there are little things as well that keep society going.
		Interpreting street signs is a form of reading even.
		Traffic control is mostly addressed via expecting drivers do read.
		Navigation is accomplished via reading named street signs and address numbers.
		Expanding short-term memory, as mentioned above, is done though writing and later reading.
		Finding what you want in the grocery store is accomplished via reading.
		Understanding prices when buying said groceries is done via reading posted price labels.
		We even label our own spice bottles (or those of us that reuse old spice bottles do) and moving boxes to tell our future selves what is in the containers.
		It&apos;d be difficult to find a way reading <strong>*hasn&apos;t*</strong> impacted us and our societies.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit3">
	<h2>Unit 3</h2>
	<p>
		What frightens me most?
		That&apos;d probably be my mother.
		I still have nightmares about her sometimes.
		I&apos;m so glad I don&apos;t have to live with her any more.
		Nothing has ever scared me quite the way my mother continues to scare me to this day.
	</p>
	<p>
		On the topic of fictionalised horror, not much does scare me though.
		That might be why I don&apos;t read horror very often.
		I guess two things do come to mind as scary though.
		First and foremost, when something bad&apos;s about to happen and it hits you exactly what it is.
		The author has just given you the final important detail of the situation.
		In almost shock, you see the even unfurl, even though the author hasn&apos;t quite confirmed it yet.
		They&apos;re going to tell you what went wrong in a paragraph or two, but you already know what&apos;s going to happen.
	</p>
	<p>
		The other, I encountered only recently.
		I&apos;m an animal; human beings are animals.
		I have instincts, sometimes ones my conscious mind isn&apos;t even aware of.
		Anyway, I encountered a tale in which the protagonist&apos;s sibling dies, which normally wouldn&apos;t get to me.
		It&apos;s just a story, and the death wasn&apos;t even a surprise; it wasn&apos;t meant to be.
		But the phrasing ... the protagonist was left as the last of their family&apos;s bloodline, at least at that generation.
		I mean, their parents were still alive and all.
		I&apos;d never thought about such a situation that way, and it hit me hard somewhere in my primal mind.
		I shuddered at the thought of my family dying out if I failed to reproduce, as no one else would be there to pick up the slack.
		Strangely, this is completely counter to my conscious wants, needs, and desires.
		I&apos;m intentionally taking myself out of the gene pool, and two of my three siblings currently plan to do the same.
		We&apos;ll lead long, healthy lives, we just choose not to breed.
		I&apos;d actually be ecstatic if our remaining sibling decided to do the same, but it seems they&apos;re planning to start a family.
		And that&apos;s fine.
		It&apos;s their decision.
		However, it really surprised me that some primal part of brain disagrees with my plan.
		Some instinctual part of me wants the family line to carry on, be it through me or through a sibling.
		And the thought of this not happening scares that part of me.
		It&apos;s a quiet, mostly dormant part of me.
		It doesn&apos;t speak up often (I didn&apos;t even know it was there until recently), and the story doesn&apos;t even affect me any more.
	</p>
	<p>
		I don&apos;t really see others react to horror though.
		It&apos;s not like I&apos;d be at the movie theatre or something and able to observe the reactions of others.
		There aren&apos;t any free culture horror movies I&apos;m aware of, and I wouldn&apos;t want to watch a proprietary movie.
		If I watched it, I&apos;d have to censor myself, not allowing myself to derive from the movie, and I&apos;m highly opposed to censorship.
		It&apos;s better to just avoid proprietary movies to begin with.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit4">
	<h2>Unit 4</h2>
	<p>
		I&apos;m not a science fiction buff.
		I don&apos;t know a single piece of technology found in science fiction that came before it actually showed up in the real world.
		A quick Web search turned up some results though.
		One example I found particularity important is pretty much the entire field of <a href="https://electricliterature.com/8-pieces-of-modern-technology-that-science-fiction-predicted-or-invented-dd79dd1a9997?gi=f485b5ba948f">government surveillance</a>.
	</p>
	<p>
		In George Orwell&apos;s 1984, the government uses &quot;telescreens&quot; to watch every move of every citizen.
		A similar invention later came to life in the real world: closed-circuit television.
		Often, this technology is employed to monitor a particular premises by the owners of said premises.
		For example, look up at the ceiling in most department stores.
		The cameras up there lead directly to an in-house recording station, which doesn&apos;t broadcast publicly; that&apos;s closed-circuit television.
		This use of the tech has nothing to do with the government, and as far as I know, the government isn&apos;t watching us buy our groceries.
		Government-owned closed-circuit television cameras are also mounted at many traffic lights.
		Supposedly, they&apos;re only there to catch the registration plates of people that run stop lights, but we all know they&apos;re likely used for more.
		If you step outside, you&apos;re under government surveillance.
	</p>
	<p>
		As far as I know, the government doesn&apos;t use closed-circuit television cameras in our homes, but they don&apos;t need to.
		They just tap our telephones, monitor our Internet connections, and hack into our own webcams.
		It&apos;s a scary world out there, and government surveillance is no laughing matter.
		Sadly, 1984 predicted it would show up at some point, too.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit5">
	<h2>Unit 5</h2>
	<p>
		As we know, there are eight types of magical energy in this world, and as such, magic users are classified into eight categories.
		The emotional red mages, both ill-tempered and violent in times of distress, are also loving and loyal to a fault.
		They are a bit unstable at times, but they&apos;re the type who would always have your back.
		The enigmatic black mages are bringers of chaos and corruption in all that they touch.
		Their mystic arts cause mutation, and through it, evolution in all things magical.
		The enlightened magenta mages are bringers of truth.
		Through their insight, civilisation is lead in a positive direction.
		The energetic yellow mages are capable of powering anything they put their effort into.
		Our society wouldn&apos;t function without the work of these people.
		The solemn green mages are well-versed in the ways of life-giving magic.
		Though they tend to prefer creating life, they also posses the ability to take it away.
		The serene blue mages manipulate the flow of mater and energy alike.
		They give direction and purpose to anything they come in contact with.
		The purist white mages are stuck up and snotty in attitude.
		They look down on other magic users, often refusing to even acknowledge them as true mages, but they also possess the ability to separate and purify nearly anything better, faster, and more completely than anyone else.
		A lot of good separation does them though without recombination and purpose.
		And then there&apos;s us: the cyan mages.
		We specialise in works of mind.
		Astral projection.
		Advanced planning.
		Precise calculation.
		Though often labelled as emotionally cold by others, when we put our minds to it, there&apos;s little we can&apos;t accomplish.
		Of course, it pays to have help.
		Unfortunately, many of us would rather entirely delegate than work as part of the team getting things done.
		We&apos;re not all like that, though.
	</p>
	<p>
		Most mages make the choice in which magic to study based on their genetics.
		You either have yellow energy flowing through you, or white, or green ...
		You can&apos;t pick your aptitudes.
		You can try something you&apos;re ill-suited for, but you just won&apos;t get as good of results.
		Advanced mages often study secondary arts, but even then, their choice in arts is usually tied to their aptitudes.
		As a cyan mage, my kind is best with cyan magic, but we&apos;re also decent with green, blue, and white magic.
		We perform rather terribly at black, yellow, and magenta magic.
		We&apos;re completely unable to perform red magic whatsoever.
		Not that most of us would even want to.
		Red magic is a magic of emotion, directly opposite to our intellectual magic.
		Practising red magic, were we able to, would likely ... dull our ability to look at things objectively and rationally, a skill we pride ourselves in above all else.
		The red are important to our society of course, we just don&apos;t want to be them.
		We&apos;d rather be us.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;ve learned much in my studies, but I&apos;ve come across an interesting concept outside my field I&apos;d like to look into: immortality.
		Imagine what you could learn if you had forever!
		It seems complicated though, even for me.
		If only I had more time!
		It&apos;s a chicken and egg situation.
		With time, I could study, but I need to study to get that time.
		As usual, I have a plan.
		I studied some blue magic a while back.
		I&apos;ve now been studying black magic as of late, under one of its best practitioners.
		Black mages are usually the most likely to take up a second, third, or even fourth art, but in turn, they&apos;re also the most open sharing the wisdom of their arts.
		Some say it&apos;s a part of their element&apos;s desire to mutate and corrode.
		Using the mutagenic properties of black magic, I hope to adapt the magic of mine and magic of flow to send my mind back in time.
		If I can create a stable time loop for my mind but not my body, I&apos;ll have all the time I need.
		I can study as much as I need without fear of ageing.
		Once I&apos;ve succeeded in securing immortality, I can hopefully break the time loop and continue on with life.
		Breaking the loop may require purifying white magic though, to undo the effects of the black magic.
		Should I fail to enlist the help of a white mage within the efforts of a single loop, things will reset again.
		I&apos;ll be trapped, looping indefinitely.
		I can try again, but I&apos;ll only have so long before previous efforts will be rendered moot and I&apos;ll have to start again.
		The white aren&apos;t so welcoming as the black, or even the blue, so I fear what might become of me.
		It&apos;s a chance I&apos;m willing to take though.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit6">
	<h2>Unit 6</h2>
	<p>
		&quot;Come in.
		It&apos;s unlocked.&quot;
	</p>
	<p>
		The knob turned, and the door swung open, revealing a man in a grey business suit.
		&quot;I heard you had something to show me, Doctor Dawson.&quot;
	</p>
	<p>
		&quot;Yes, that&apos;s correct.&quot;, replied the woman in a lab coat.
		&quot;Right this way.
		&quot; They walked over to the far wall to a secure-looking metal door set off the ground, about the size of a dumb-waiter.
		Next to it on the wall was a palm scanner, which she put her hand on.
		The door opened, revealing a shallow cabinet with three shelves.
		She took a small vial of magenta powder and held it out to the man.
		&quot;It still needs further testing, but I think we&apos;re pretty close.
		We&apos;re still working on the remaining side effects, but it&apos;s been performing better than we&apos;d hoped.
		We&apos;re calling it phoenix dust.
		You know, because it can restore those at death&apos;s door, no matter how serious their illness.&quot;
	</p>
	<p>
		He took the vial in his hand, shook around a bit in a circular motion, then held it up to the light to look at it.
		&quot;You mean the psychotic rage and potential amnesia.
		&quot; She nodded.
		&quot;Still,&quot;, she replied, &quot;she&apos;s running out of time.
		We may not be able to fix the problem in time to save her.
		Using the formula now could be her only shot.
		&quot; &quot;She might not be herself any more though.
		Who would we really be saving?&quot;, he asked.
		&quot;It&apos;s up to you.
		I can only present you with your options.
		Risk losing your daughter to the fever or risk losing her mind to the dust.&quot;
	</p>
	<p>
		&quot;How long will it take to fix medicine?&quot;, he asked desperately.
		&quot;Too long.
		&quot;, she replied.
		&quot;We can only keep her stable a couple more days.
		And once she&apos;s dead, she&apos;s gone.
		Even phoenix powder can&apos;t revive the dead.
		We were lucky to get as good a breakthrough as we did a couple days ago.
		I was expecting it to be years before we got the stuff working as well as we have.
		You&apos;ll have to make your choice.&quot;
	</p>
	<p>
		&quot;What should I do?&quot;, he asked.
		&quot;You should take some time to think about it.
		But in my professional opinion, you should say your goodbyes, then have her take the dust.
		She&apos;s a goner without it.
		We have no other way to save her at this point.
		The fever&apos;s progressed too far.
		At least with the phoenix dust, she has a chance.
		It&apos;s still possible she won&apos;t lose herself.
		&quot; &quot;Yeah.&quot;, he replied.
		&quot;There&apos;s still a chance.&quot;
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Unit7">
	<h2>Unit 7</h2>
	<p>
		An explorer travels around the world raiding ancient temples to gather eight coloured gems.
		Legend holds that if the eight gems are brought together, their bearer will gain immortality.
		Little does the explorer know, immortality comes at a terrible price.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
